READ NOVEL ONLINE Exploiting Hollywood 1980.
Chapter 178 When can a principle be violated?
Chapter 178 When can a principle be violated?
"Did you teach the axis principle and continuous editing in the editing class when you were in New York University?" Early the next morning, Walter Murray came to the office full of energy and began to teach Ronald the secret of editing—— Six principles for distinguishing what is good from what is bad.
"Yes, the principle of the axis is to keep the camera on one side of the two dialogue characters, and don't just run to the other side, otherwise a character suddenly appears on the left of the audience and suddenly appears on the right of the audience, which will cause confusion in the audience's thinking .
The principle of continuous editing is that when editing a person's actions, try to keep them as continuous as possible.For example, when a person sits on a stool and wants to stand up, when cutting from a close-up to a medium-shot, it is necessary to find a point with the same movement on the two films to connect, and try to keep the standing-up movement continuous to avoid the audience feeling strange. "
Ronald repeated the standard answers in the film editing class.He saw that Walter was in good spirits today. He had a hippie-like beard and was shaved clean. He was wearing a plaid suit, and his demeanor changed from a hippie to a Hollywood elite.
"So, when you watch a new movie, have you carefully observed the editing techniques, and have you kept these two principles at all times?"
"No, the current film seems to be influenced by Godard, the new wave director of China, and the editing often breaks the principle of continuity to jump cut.
And some film directors in Dongying, such as Akira Kurosawa, don’t follow the axis principle very much, but I don’t find it awkward when watching it. It seems that these two principles are often broken. "
In Scorsese's film appreciation class, Ronald often pays attention to some technical details that others ignore. His film review assignments are often different, not talking about artistry or thought, but talking about technical details.
"Very well, what I'm teaching you today is the other four principles of editing, which are emotion, story, rhythm, and eye focus." Walter put a reel of film on the editing machine and started to play it.
"It's the first 10 minutes of Apocalypse Now. You can see here, Martin Sheen's protagonist is full of anger, and the audience is also infected by this emotion. When editing, make sure the audience's emotions flow.
Together with the story and emotions, the audience gradually discovered that he was an officer of the Rice Army, accepted the mission in Saigon, and finally embarked on an adventure journey.
And the rhythm of this storytelling is also very smooth. "
"So the first three principles seem to go hand in hand?"
"That's right, it's not easy for us to separate them. Let's look at the fourth principle, the focus of sight. The picture of the helicopter propeller gradually fades out, and the focus of the audience's sight still stays at the position of the propeller on the screen, so we connect the picture of the ceiling fan that fades in, It should also appear in this position."
"I understand that when editing, we should pay attention to which part of the screen the audience is looking at, so that the focus of the next picture remains there."
"That's right, don't make the audience guess where to look next."
"So emotion, story, rhythm, focus of sight, axis principle, and continuity of action. Therefore, those that meet these six principles are good shots, and they are connected according to the principles. Those that do not meet the principles are bad shots, which must be cut." Luo Nader concluded.
"Don't you think there is something wrong with your statement?" Walter Murch raised the corner of his mouth. "Why are the latter two principles often abandoned in today's movies?"
Indeed, Ronald looked back at the beginning of this Apocalypse Now, and the axis principle was violated by the shot of the protagonist accepting the task, and the continuity of action was not followed at all.The strange thing is that I didn't feel awkward when I watched it.
"I feel that the most important thing is the audience's emotional experience. As long as this is met, the audience will not feel the violation of the axis principle and the continuity principle."
"Very well, principles are important, but what's more important is to know when you can disobey them." Walter nodded. This student knows everything, and his comprehension is really good.
"If we rank these six principles, mood, story, rhythm, eye focus, axis principle, and continuity of action.
Any single principle is more important than all the subsequent principles combined.If you can't have both, in order to ensure the principle of the superior, you can violate the principle of the inferior. "
"For example, the axis principle is very intuitive. We always feel that it should not be violated. As long as it is violated, the audience will feel that the two speaking characters have switched positions, which is very dramatic.
But Akira Kurosawa's films don't take the principle of axis into account very much, because his stories and rhythm are so good that the audience won't feel that the camera is off-axis when watching it.The superior principle can always shield the inferior principle. "
Ronald quickly wrote down the secret book, this is the true biography.
"To give another example that is common in American movies. There is always a kind of scene in the movie that always deliberately violates the axis principle. Do you know what kind of scene it is?"
Ronald thought for a while, but still shook his head to express that he didn't know.
"It's a passionate drama, because emotionally, we want the audience to feel the power of the passion of the hero and heroine. When the passion comes, we always forget all other things, and there is a feeling that the world is spinning.
Therefore, when cutting a passionate scene, a good editor will deliberately violate the axis, causing the audience a feeling of spinning and making them feel the power of passion. "
Ronald nodded, "So if the audience's visual focus is satisfied, they will ignore the axis and continuity principle after you violate it. But the audience will not ignore mistakes in emotions, stories, and rhythm. The superior principle can be blocked to The principle of inferiority, and vice versa."
"That's right, the reason why this is possible lies in the audience's attention. The purpose of these principles is to keep the audience's attention on the screen. We must be able to foresee the shift of audience's attention in the next movie. Give them something new before they lose interest."
Ronald felt that these words were very familiar. Roger Coleman's directorial secrets also talked about the preciousness of the audience's attention. It seems that successful practitioners in the film industry think the same.
"So how do you predict the audience's attention?"
"Experience, intuition, and feedback from test screenings, there is no other way." Walter Murch sighed, "This is why no one knows the secret of a movie's success, every new movie is groping, trade off."
"If I can continue to dream about the movies I watched in my previous life, wouldn't that be a more powerful weapon than others?" Ronald decided to go back to the hotel and try sleeping and dreaming again.
"Do you still remember my lecture at New World Company?" Walter seemed to want to tell Ronald all the important things first, let him write them down, and then slowly comprehend them when they encountered them at work.
"Yes, I keep all my notes."
"Editing is not about fighting for speed. It's good to see you speed up and finish cutting. It's not about how many times you cut and count the number of times to count the money. This is an art and a science. It is more appropriate to say that editing is a craft."
"The more you practice, the more proficient you are at scientific principles and artistic trade-offs, and the faster you can find the best solution."
"Editing often has to go back and forth to consider different permutations and combinations. How to connect this one to that one, cut it from here, and connect it to there. Many times you will feel that time is not enough. I will teach you a trick to save time now. the way of thinking."
Walter Murch opened his desk drawer, took out a large-format notebook, and showed it to Ronald.
"This seems to be a photo reprinted from film?" Ronald is also a photographer himself, and he is very familiar with the various photos in the notebook, all of which are reprinted from the film film of Apocalypse Now.
"Yes, my method is to pick a frame that best represents it for each shot, and reproduce it as a photo and paste it on the wall. If it is a long shot, you can use 2-3 photos to represent it.
In this way, when I think about arrangement and combination, I don't have to repeatedly disassemble and assemble the film, and I can use these photos instead. "
"It turns out to be like this", Ronald looked at each photo carefully, for example, in the long shot of getting up at the beginning, Walter picked Martin Sheen to jump up from the bed, his palm was cut by the mirror, and he started to do Tai Chi The three photos represent.
If you have seen every film shot, it is easy to recall which scene these three photos represent.
"The exposure process of film film is different from that of photo film. I have explored a set of parameters, which can reproduce the effect of general photos on film film in Kodak printing shop without losing the details of film film."
Walter took out a piece of paper and handed it to Ronald.
"You're a quick learner." I have nothing left to teach you, "all that's left is to hone and gain experience."
Ronald took a look, it was a set of parameters, using the method of low sensitivity and long exposure, according to this method, the film film can be developed in Kodak photofinishing shop to produce photos with ideal effect.
After taking the secret book and carefully putting it in his notebook, Ronald had a lot of words of thanks in his heart.
Walter turned around and took a large glass bottle and handed it to him, "This is the honey that Angie brought to you. We made it from our own bees. I heard that you like it very much, so I will give you another big bottle."
"Keep working hard, and one day I will see your movie on the screen." Walter hugged Ronald encouragingly, and patted him on the back.
"And you too, Walter. I'm going to see your new Disney movie."
Friendship between men sometimes does not need to be measured by material things, nor does it need to be spoken out.With a full harvest, Ronald returned to the hotel to tidy up carefully.Don't forget these precious knowledge.
Ronald tidied it up carefully before he began to rest.
Or lie on the bed for a while, looking for the feeling of dreaming.
Turn off the lights and fall asleep on the hotel bed in broad daylight.
Dimly, Ronald seemed to be dreaming of a white soldier, picking up a rifle and trying to save someone in the hail of bullets. He carried a black soldier on his shoulders, ran back desperately, and was hit in the ass by a bullet, The black soldier was muttering something to the white soldier.
As soon as the screen turned, Ronald could clearly see the face of the black soldier, which was his uncle Steve.No, Steve is white.Ronald looked at the white soldier's face again, but it was blurry and he couldn't see who it was.
"Ring, ring, ring..." Ronald was awakened by the phone ringing.
"Hello, who?" Ronald answered the phone angrily. It turned out that he was really dreaming, dreaming about his uncle who died in the Vietnam War, not the movie "My Brother's Protector".
“Your screenplay sold for $35?” it was Eddie, his New York-based commercial directing agent, yelling, “I now regret not taking your writing agent as well. "
"How do you know?" Ronald sat up from the bed all of a sudden, how could the news leak out?
(End of this chapter)
"Did you teach the axis principle and continuous editing in the editing class when you were in New York University?" Early the next morning, Walter Murray came to the office full of energy and began to teach Ronald the secret of editing—— Six principles for distinguishing what is good from what is bad.
"Yes, the principle of the axis is to keep the camera on one side of the two dialogue characters, and don't just run to the other side, otherwise a character suddenly appears on the left of the audience and suddenly appears on the right of the audience, which will cause confusion in the audience's thinking .
The principle of continuous editing is that when editing a person's actions, try to keep them as continuous as possible.For example, when a person sits on a stool and wants to stand up, when cutting from a close-up to a medium-shot, it is necessary to find a point with the same movement on the two films to connect, and try to keep the standing-up movement continuous to avoid the audience feeling strange. "
Ronald repeated the standard answers in the film editing class.He saw that Walter was in good spirits today. He had a hippie-like beard and was shaved clean. He was wearing a plaid suit, and his demeanor changed from a hippie to a Hollywood elite.
"So, when you watch a new movie, have you carefully observed the editing techniques, and have you kept these two principles at all times?"
"No, the current film seems to be influenced by Godard, the new wave director of China, and the editing often breaks the principle of continuity to jump cut.
And some film directors in Dongying, such as Akira Kurosawa, don’t follow the axis principle very much, but I don’t find it awkward when watching it. It seems that these two principles are often broken. "
In Scorsese's film appreciation class, Ronald often pays attention to some technical details that others ignore. His film review assignments are often different, not talking about artistry or thought, but talking about technical details.
"Very well, what I'm teaching you today is the other four principles of editing, which are emotion, story, rhythm, and eye focus." Walter put a reel of film on the editing machine and started to play it.
"It's the first 10 minutes of Apocalypse Now. You can see here, Martin Sheen's protagonist is full of anger, and the audience is also infected by this emotion. When editing, make sure the audience's emotions flow.
Together with the story and emotions, the audience gradually discovered that he was an officer of the Rice Army, accepted the mission in Saigon, and finally embarked on an adventure journey.
And the rhythm of this storytelling is also very smooth. "
"So the first three principles seem to go hand in hand?"
"That's right, it's not easy for us to separate them. Let's look at the fourth principle, the focus of sight. The picture of the helicopter propeller gradually fades out, and the focus of the audience's sight still stays at the position of the propeller on the screen, so we connect the picture of the ceiling fan that fades in, It should also appear in this position."
"I understand that when editing, we should pay attention to which part of the screen the audience is looking at, so that the focus of the next picture remains there."
"That's right, don't make the audience guess where to look next."
"So emotion, story, rhythm, focus of sight, axis principle, and continuity of action. Therefore, those that meet these six principles are good shots, and they are connected according to the principles. Those that do not meet the principles are bad shots, which must be cut." Luo Nader concluded.
"Don't you think there is something wrong with your statement?" Walter Murch raised the corner of his mouth. "Why are the latter two principles often abandoned in today's movies?"
Indeed, Ronald looked back at the beginning of this Apocalypse Now, and the axis principle was violated by the shot of the protagonist accepting the task, and the continuity of action was not followed at all.The strange thing is that I didn't feel awkward when I watched it.
"I feel that the most important thing is the audience's emotional experience. As long as this is met, the audience will not feel the violation of the axis principle and the continuity principle."
"Very well, principles are important, but what's more important is to know when you can disobey them." Walter nodded. This student knows everything, and his comprehension is really good.
"If we rank these six principles, mood, story, rhythm, eye focus, axis principle, and continuity of action.
Any single principle is more important than all the subsequent principles combined.If you can't have both, in order to ensure the principle of the superior, you can violate the principle of the inferior. "
"For example, the axis principle is very intuitive. We always feel that it should not be violated. As long as it is violated, the audience will feel that the two speaking characters have switched positions, which is very dramatic.
But Akira Kurosawa's films don't take the principle of axis into account very much, because his stories and rhythm are so good that the audience won't feel that the camera is off-axis when watching it.The superior principle can always shield the inferior principle. "
Ronald quickly wrote down the secret book, this is the true biography.
"To give another example that is common in American movies. There is always a kind of scene in the movie that always deliberately violates the axis principle. Do you know what kind of scene it is?"
Ronald thought for a while, but still shook his head to express that he didn't know.
"It's a passionate drama, because emotionally, we want the audience to feel the power of the passion of the hero and heroine. When the passion comes, we always forget all other things, and there is a feeling that the world is spinning.
Therefore, when cutting a passionate scene, a good editor will deliberately violate the axis, causing the audience a feeling of spinning and making them feel the power of passion. "
Ronald nodded, "So if the audience's visual focus is satisfied, they will ignore the axis and continuity principle after you violate it. But the audience will not ignore mistakes in emotions, stories, and rhythm. The superior principle can be blocked to The principle of inferiority, and vice versa."
"That's right, the reason why this is possible lies in the audience's attention. The purpose of these principles is to keep the audience's attention on the screen. We must be able to foresee the shift of audience's attention in the next movie. Give them something new before they lose interest."
Ronald felt that these words were very familiar. Roger Coleman's directorial secrets also talked about the preciousness of the audience's attention. It seems that successful practitioners in the film industry think the same.
"So how do you predict the audience's attention?"
"Experience, intuition, and feedback from test screenings, there is no other way." Walter Murch sighed, "This is why no one knows the secret of a movie's success, every new movie is groping, trade off."
"If I can continue to dream about the movies I watched in my previous life, wouldn't that be a more powerful weapon than others?" Ronald decided to go back to the hotel and try sleeping and dreaming again.
"Do you still remember my lecture at New World Company?" Walter seemed to want to tell Ronald all the important things first, let him write them down, and then slowly comprehend them when they encountered them at work.
"Yes, I keep all my notes."
"Editing is not about fighting for speed. It's good to see you speed up and finish cutting. It's not about how many times you cut and count the number of times to count the money. This is an art and a science. It is more appropriate to say that editing is a craft."
"The more you practice, the more proficient you are at scientific principles and artistic trade-offs, and the faster you can find the best solution."
"Editing often has to go back and forth to consider different permutations and combinations. How to connect this one to that one, cut it from here, and connect it to there. Many times you will feel that time is not enough. I will teach you a trick to save time now. the way of thinking."
Walter Murch opened his desk drawer, took out a large-format notebook, and showed it to Ronald.
"This seems to be a photo reprinted from film?" Ronald is also a photographer himself, and he is very familiar with the various photos in the notebook, all of which are reprinted from the film film of Apocalypse Now.
"Yes, my method is to pick a frame that best represents it for each shot, and reproduce it as a photo and paste it on the wall. If it is a long shot, you can use 2-3 photos to represent it.
In this way, when I think about arrangement and combination, I don't have to repeatedly disassemble and assemble the film, and I can use these photos instead. "
"It turns out to be like this", Ronald looked at each photo carefully, for example, in the long shot of getting up at the beginning, Walter picked Martin Sheen to jump up from the bed, his palm was cut by the mirror, and he started to do Tai Chi The three photos represent.
If you have seen every film shot, it is easy to recall which scene these three photos represent.
"The exposure process of film film is different from that of photo film. I have explored a set of parameters, which can reproduce the effect of general photos on film film in Kodak printing shop without losing the details of film film."
Walter took out a piece of paper and handed it to Ronald.
"You're a quick learner." I have nothing left to teach you, "all that's left is to hone and gain experience."
Ronald took a look, it was a set of parameters, using the method of low sensitivity and long exposure, according to this method, the film film can be developed in Kodak photofinishing shop to produce photos with ideal effect.
After taking the secret book and carefully putting it in his notebook, Ronald had a lot of words of thanks in his heart.
Walter turned around and took a large glass bottle and handed it to him, "This is the honey that Angie brought to you. We made it from our own bees. I heard that you like it very much, so I will give you another big bottle."
"Keep working hard, and one day I will see your movie on the screen." Walter hugged Ronald encouragingly, and patted him on the back.
"And you too, Walter. I'm going to see your new Disney movie."
Friendship between men sometimes does not need to be measured by material things, nor does it need to be spoken out.With a full harvest, Ronald returned to the hotel to tidy up carefully.Don't forget these precious knowledge.
Ronald tidied it up carefully before he began to rest.
Or lie on the bed for a while, looking for the feeling of dreaming.
Turn off the lights and fall asleep on the hotel bed in broad daylight.
Dimly, Ronald seemed to be dreaming of a white soldier, picking up a rifle and trying to save someone in the hail of bullets. He carried a black soldier on his shoulders, ran back desperately, and was hit in the ass by a bullet, The black soldier was muttering something to the white soldier.
As soon as the screen turned, Ronald could clearly see the face of the black soldier, which was his uncle Steve.No, Steve is white.Ronald looked at the white soldier's face again, but it was blurry and he couldn't see who it was.
"Ring, ring, ring..." Ronald was awakened by the phone ringing.
"Hello, who?" Ronald answered the phone angrily. It turned out that he was really dreaming, dreaming about his uncle who died in the Vietnam War, not the movie "My Brother's Protector".
“Your screenplay sold for $35?” it was Eddie, his New York-based commercial directing agent, yelling, “I now regret not taking your writing agent as well. "
"How do you know?" Ronald sat up from the bed all of a sudden, how could the news leak out?
(End of this chapter)
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